Lisa Russ Spaar


Lisa Russ Spaar is a contemporary American poet, professor, and essayist.
She is currently a professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia and the director of the Area Program in Poetry Writing. She is the author of numerous books of poetry, most recently and . Her latest collection, Orexia, was published by in 2017. The Virginia Quarterly Review describes her work as
Her poem, , published in IMAGE Journal, won a 2016 Pushcart Prize.
Spaar has also edited several anthologies, including , which Billy Collins says "gathers mighty swirl of poetry into a gorgeous volume whose variety and heft rival the city itself— its smoke, roar, and flow."

Education

Spaar graduated summa cum laude from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in 1978. Two years later, in 1980, she returned to the University of Virginia to complete her education with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing.

Poetry

Spaar's books of poetry include Orexia , , 2008, , for which she won the Rona Jaffe Award for Emerging Women Writers in 2000.
Spaar's poems have been widely published in many places, including Boston Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, The Paris Review, SLATE, The Virginia Quarterly Review, IMAGE Journal, , The Alabama Literary Review, Blackbird, Spirituality & Health, Cerise Press, Connotations Press, Waxwing, TUBA, 32 Poems, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, The Kenyon Review, The Yale Review, Denver Quarterly, Quarterly West, , , , , The Southwest Review, Crazyhorse, , Bellingham Review, College English, , , , , Poet Lore, , , American Literary Review, 64, Indiana Review, Smartish Pace, & elsewhere.

Prose

Currently, Spaar writes a series of articles entitled "Second Acts: A Second Look at Second Books of Poetry," published through the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Spaar has contributed more than 70 articles to the Chronicle of Higher Education, including the Monday's Poem series and the Spaar on Poetry series.

Teaching

Spaar has received numerous teaching honors and awards.

Awards